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PRESBYTERIANISM, 1 



ITS SiBU-VIGES 



THt REVOLUTION 



17^/6. 



J^ DIBCOTJI^SH] 



Rev. W. P. B;RE'ED, D. D., 



SabbatJi, Februc\ry yf/i, iSyj. 



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P H I L A D E . 

lN(jriKKK Book AND JOll PkIN 

Feb., t' 



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TIB 11 



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ISCOU^SE 



Joshua iv, 7. — "And these Stones shall be a Memorial 
UNTO THE Children of Israel forever." 



Amonu the countless events of history there are those 
which stand as milestones along the highway of human 
progress. Though, at the period of their occurrence, few 
discern their signiticance and none their proper magni- 
tude, vet, as time rolls on, their import emerges to view, 
and men see that God was in them. 

They make or mark a historic epoch ; in them the pen- 
dulum of time swings through one of its sweeping oscilla- 
tions ; in them the clock of time strikes another hour. 

The event may occur in the recesses of a human mind — 
as when Galileo, discovered the principle of the pendulum 
in the swaying to and fro of the chandelier in the old 
Cathedral at Pisa; or, as when the apple, falling from the 
tree in the orchard at Woolstliorpe, set the mind of Newton 
at work upon the great principle of gravitation ; or, as 
when Morse, applying the principles of electricity, gave to 
the world the Electric Telegraph. 

Or the event may be of more public character — as the 
crossing of the Rubicon by Julius Cicsar, which turned the 
whole course of Roman history into another channel ; oi- 
the battle of Hastings, which gave Britain to the Normans 



l^n^ 



and stamped an everlasting impress upon the history of the 
world. 

And such an event was that memoral)le Jordan-passage 
by the Children of Israel. To unfold all its signitieance, 
to recount all its germinal elements would require a volume. 
Let us hint at some of them : 

First. Regarded as the last step in the long march from. 
Egypt, that crossing was the passage of a nation front Ivrndagc 
to freedom. 

Then the backs of millions passed from under the lash 
of the taskmaster, and the lives of millions from under the 
rod of the despot. Now, they were free to make their own 
laws, select theii- own judges, elect their own kings, and 
worship their own God without let or hindrance from 
domineering heathenism. 

Second. That crossing was the fulfilment of a long series 
of inspired prophecies and divine promises, ami the realization of 
century-long, devout and patriotic expectations. 

It was to that .Jordan -passage that the linger of God 
pointed when he said to Abraham in Haran : " Get thee 
out of this country to a land that I will show thee.',' — 
Gen. xii, 1, 2. 

And also, ^vhen he gave to Jacob the assurance, " The 
laud which I gave to Abraham and Isa ic to thee will I give 
it." — Gen. xxxv, 12. 

This passage was before Joseph's dying eye when he said 
to his brethren, " I die, and God will bring ^'ou out of this 
land and unto the land which he sware to Abraham, to 
Isaac and to Jacob." — Gen. I 24, 25. 

Third. And in that event were embosomed, as the germ 
in the seed, all subsequent Jewish history down to the time 
when at, or near this very spot, the Spirit of God descended 
in bodily form as a dove and abode upon the Divine 8on of 
Abraham. In it were all the Samuels and Davids, Isaialis 
and Jeremiahs, the glorious temple and its splendid ritual. 



Fourth. Embosomed in it was, also, the germ of an infiu- 
t,nce that vms to reach round the world and, on to the end of time. 

For salvatioii is of the Jews ! From the l)osom of that 
nation has come the only rehj^ion that man has any right 
to accept, or that God will acknowledge. 

Fifth. Nor may we omit the most striking and important 
feature in that passage, the great miracle by mhich it was sig- 
nalized. Joshua iii, 14, 17. 

In this miracle, the great truth — " God in history," — 
finds assertion. 

Some read liistory as if it were the mere hap hazard of 
human caprice ; and some, as the product of a huge mill 
ground by resistless physical force. But it is neither. It 
is the result of combined divine and human workings. 
Nations are armies, each soldier free, but God the com- 
mander. All the world's a stage, and all tlie men and 
women are merely players, but God wrote the play, and 
he determines the entrance and exits of tlie actors, and 
maintains sovereign control over their actions. 

And now, that crossing ettected, God commands tliat 
the memory of that event, so big with elements and issues 
of the future, be commemorated by a monument of stone; 
the stones taken from the bed of the river and piled up on 
the shore, there to remain a silent, but not speechless 
witness of the wonders and glories of the hour. Joshua 
iii, 4, 7. 

And there it is to-day! iSJot indeed in its stony 
materials on the shore of the Jordan, to be glanced at by 
the passing tourist, or gazed on by the wandering, maraud- 
ing Bedouin, but there, in imperishable photograph on the 
page of inspiration I 

Now, in this command of God, have we not a divine 
warrant for the setting uj) before the eyes of men of monu- 
mental memorials of events that embosom the destinies of 
a nation, and the weal of mankind? 

But those of us who may be spared for another year, 



will see tens of thousands of our own beloved nation, and 
crowds from other nations of ever}- kindred, tribe, and 
tongue thronging our city, to take part in a succession of 
exciting services, commemorative of the time when our 
Others, under the inspiration of principles derived from 
this holy word, at the ringing of that bell that proclaimed 
" liberty throughout all the land, unto all the inhabitants 
thereof," and clumting as they marched, "All men are 
created equal, and are endowed by their Creator with 
certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, 
and the pursuit of happiness," crossed tlie Jordan from 
colonial bondage to national freedom ! 

And then, as in a photograph, will be hold up to the 
world's gaze, our own broad land ; this Atlantic slope, and 
that Pacific slope, and that boundless intervening valley, 
" well watered everywhere lika the land of Egypt, as thou 
comest unto Zoar,'' blessed with " the precious things of 
lieaven, the dew and the deep that coucheth l)eneath, the 
precious fruits Ijrought forth by the sun, and the precious 
things put forth by the moon, tlie chief things of the 
ancient mountains, and the precious things of the lasting 
hills, the precious things of the earth and fulness thereof, 
and the o-ood will of him that dwelt in the bush ;" that 
imperial platform of commonwealths, dovetailed together 
into inseparable cohesion, ri banded to one anotliei- by 
those majestic rivers, and pressed down in their places bj- 
those everlasting mountains; swarming with forty millions 
of people ; hummingwith the muiiic of countless industries; 
adorned with arts that vie with those of the nations across 
the sea; dotted over with schools, seminaries, colleges 
and universities where our sons are " as plants growing 
up in their youth, and our daughters like corner stones, 
polished after the similitude of a palace;" abounding from 
lake to gulf, and from ocean to ocean, with Sabbath 
schools, and with church edifices whose spires point to 
heaven, and glorified with countless hospitals and homes 



for the friendless, and other institutions of Christian 

charity : 

" A glorious land, 
With broad arms stretched from shore to shore; 

The proud Pacitif chafes her strand, 
She hears the loud Atlantic roar; 

And nurtured in her ample breast, 
How many a goodly prospect lies, 

In nature's wildest grandeur drest. 
Enamelled with her loveliest dies." 

And, now, surveying the teeming atHuence of results, 
the issue of that Jordan passage: results (^f material pros- 
perity, of civil and religious freedom, happy severance of 
church and state, of evangelical piety and missionary zeal, 
who will condemn — who will not commend, if we, as Pres- 
byterians, inquire after and set forth the services rendered 
in that passage by Presbyterians V 

There is no call upon us to disparage any other body of 
co-workers in the great cause of human emancipation. If 
our Lutheran brethren remind us that the great leader 
whose name they bear, was the iirst in the great reforma- 
tion to smite and break the chain that held the human 
mind in bondage, we, with all our hearts, will thank God with 
them for the services that heroic man was called to render. 
And our Episcopal bretliren may well glory in the fact 
that the matchless Washington was an Episcopalian ; nor 
will our Baptist l)rethren forbid our glorying in our cause, 
for we glory with them in the name of Koger Williams who, 
far in advance of his times, delivered the golden oracle, 
" the civil magistrate should restrain crime, but never 
control opinion," and whose biography has been faithfully 
recorded by a Presbyterian pen. And as to the New 
England Puritans, their services are too well known and 
too widely acknowledged to fear assault from any (pnirter. 
And if they are to be assailed it must be by some one else 
than the writer, who derives his descent on either side 
through an ancestry reaching almost from the deck of the 
Maytlower. 



But with ample and tlianki'ul ackiiowledgriR'iit of all 
that is (liu; to otliers, it is a privilege that no one will 
(piestioii, of Presbyterians, to remind themselves, their 
children and the world of the services rendered bv Presby- 
terianism to their country. 

First then let us remark that Presbyterianlmi is Hself a 
pure form of represetifaiive jRepublican Government . 

That there is a natural and strong afiinity between 
Presbyterian and re[)nblican forms of government is a 
truth that has been fully acknowledged. 

" Calvinism," writes Mr. Bancroft, " is gradual republi- 
canism." 

Of tlie kScottish preachers, Macaulay writes: "They 
inherited the republican opinions of Knox.'" 

" The school of Knox," writes Jlallam, "was full of men 
breathing their Master's spirit. Their system of local and 
general assemblies infused, together with the forms of a 
republic, its energy and impatience of external control, 
combined with the concentration and unity of purpose that 
belongs to the most vigorous government." 

'•Calvin," writes Prof. Horsley, "was untpiestionably, 
in theory, a republican. So wedded was he to this notion 
that he endeavoured to fashion the government of all the Pro- 
testant churches upon republican principles." 

The late able and distinguished Roman Catholic, Bishop 
Hughes, of New York, wrote : " Though it is my privilege 
to regard the authority exercised by tlie General Assembly 
as usurpation, still 1 must say, with every man acquainted 
with the mode in which it is organized, that for the 
purposes of popular and political government its structure 
is little inferior to that of Congress itself. It acts on the 
principle of a radiating centre, and is without an equal or 
a rival among the other denominations of the country." 
Those who are familiar with the forms of the Greek, Roman 
autl French republics, are aware of one marked distinction 
between them and our own in the matter of organization. 



The foruier were exceedingly loose-Jointecl, while ours 
is as one body, " fitly joined together and compacted bv 
that which every joint supplietli ; " legislative, executive, 
judiciary, all distinct yet all working together as compo- 
nent parts of well adjusted machinery. 

■In the commonwealth we find , township, county and 
state government, compacted into a happy system of order, 
superiority and sul)ordin:ation ; in the judiciary, court 
above court, from lowest to supreme: and above all, the 
National Congress and r4overnment. 

And in (^ur church we have, rtrst, the individual session, 
composed of men elected by the [)eo[il( — each cliurch ;i 
little republic. 

Above the session is the Presbytery, su|>ervising all the 
church sessions, and composed of ministers ami a lay re- 
presentation from the several cliurches, e(jual and often 
superior in number to the ministers — another and larger 
republic. 

Next above is the Synod. whi(di is only a larger Presby- 
tery — another republic. 

And above all is the General Assembly, whicli is the 
General Presbyter}-, onr ecclesiastical Congress, our whole 
church in general assembly convened. 

The records of every session are annually reviewed and 
commended, or censured, l)y the Presbytery to which it 
belongs. In like manner the records of each Presbytery 
are reviewed by the Synod, and the records of each Synod 
by the General Assembly. 

A member of any one of our churclies, tried and 
censured by the session, may appeal to the Presbytery, 
and thence, if he will, to the Synod, and thence to the 
General Assembly. Thus the youngest and humblest 
member of the Presbyterian church enjoys the inalienable 
privilege of having his case iinally adjudicated by the 
vjhole church. 

It is obvious, therefore, that our church governuient is 



8 

ill singular hanuoiiv with the spirit and torni of goveru- 
uieiit ill lioth the state and nation. 

2. This being so it is not surprising to find that " Prc.y^y- 
tery'^ has alivcu/s been a sad etjesore to tyrants. 

'' Protestantism," writes Carljle, " was a revolt against 
spiritual sovereignties, popes, and much else. Freshy- 
teriaas carried out the revolt against earthly socereignties.'" 

Queen Elizabeth detested '• Presbytery." King James, 
at Hampton Court, scowling at the Presbyterian ministers 
around him, exclaimed in his profane way: 

" You are aiming at a Scot's Presbytery, \vhicli agreeth 
as well with monarchy as God and the devil. When Jack 
and Tom, and Will and Dick, shall meet, and at their 
pleasure censure me and my council, then Will shall 
stand up and say : It must be thus. Then Dick shall 
reply and say: Nay, marry, l)ut we will liave itth.us: and, 
therefore, I say, the King alone sludl decide.'' 

Then turning to the sycophants that fawned on him, he 
added, •' I will make them conform or I will harry them 
out of the land, or else worse." 

Charles I. hated Presbytery — "for" said he, " show me 
any precedent where presbyterial government and regal 
were together without perpetual rebellions." 

The poet Dryden wrote, 

" But as the poisous of the deadliest kind, 
Are to their own imliappy coasts confined, 
So Preabytery, in its pestilential zeal, 

Can flourish only in a roiiimonweal." 

So difficult was it at the time of our revolution for 
ardent monarchists to conceive how any one hut a Pres- 
byterian could rebel, that Mr. Galloway, in Parliament, 
ascribed the revolt and revolution mainly to the action of 
Presbyterian clergy and laity. 

3. Quite in harmony with the nature of Presbyte- 
rianism, and its odiousness to tyrants, is the part it took in 
our revolutionary struggle. 



9 

The Hon. Galian C. Verplunk, of ISTew York, in a pu1)lie 
address, traced tlic origin of our Declaration of Indepen- 
dence to tlie ]^ational Covenant of Scotland. 

Mr. William B. Reed, of J^hiladelpbia, himself an Epis- 
copalian, wrote. "A Presbyterian royalist was a thing- 
unheard of. The debt of gratitude which independent 
America owes to the dissenting clergy and laity never ani 
be paid.'" 

The Synod of New York, tlieu the General Assembly, 
was the very first to declare in favour of the struggle, and 
this, a full year before the Declaration of Independence, 
and to encourage and guide their people then in arms. 
Their zeal during the war exposed them to special cruel- 
ties from the British soldiery. In their rage against the 
Rev. James Caldwell, pastor of the church at Elizabeth- 
town, N. J., who, when the Declaration of Independence 
was read to the i!^ew Jersey Regiment of which he was 
chaplain, gave the toast, "Harmony, honour and all [tros- 
perity to the free and independent United States of Amer- 
ica," that they ottered large rewards for his capture. Fail- 
ing in this they shot his wife through the window of her 
room, surrounded by her nine children, then dragged her 
corpse into tlie open street and laid the liouse in ashes ! 

Mr. Bancroft writes of the people of North Carolina, 
"A spirit of independence prevailed in the highlands which 
hold the head-springs of the Yadkin and Catawba. The 
region was peopled chiefly by Presbyterians of Scotch- 
Irish descent who brought to the new world the creed, the 
spirit of resistance and the courage of the Covenanters." 

In 1775, "the people of the county of Mecklenberg, 
appointed a committee wliich met in Charlotte, and ado[)ted 
a scheme which formed in effect a declaration of indepen- 
dence, as well as a compact system of government." 

On the election of Washington to the presidencj-, the 
General Assembly appointed a committee, consisting of 
Doctors Witherspoon, Alison and Smith, to pre] tare an 
address of congratulation. In this address tliey say : 



10 

"We adore Almighty God who endowed you with such 
a rare aseenihhige of talents as hath rendered you equally 
necessary to your country in war and in peace. May he 
prolong your valuahle life, an ornament and blessing to 
your country, and, at last, bestow upon you the glorious 
reward of a faithful servant.'" 

To which Washington replied: "I receive, with great 
sensibility, the testimony given by the General Assembly 
of the Presb3'terian Church, of the lively pleasure expe- 
rienced by them on my appointment to the tirst office in the 
nation. Accept my acknowledgments for your endeavours 
to render men sober, honest and good citizens, and for 
your prayers to God for his blessing on our common 
country." 

And it is the peculiar, the unique honour of our church 
to have been represented in the Continental Congress by 
the only clergyman who sat in that body ; and he, a man 
who, v^diether we consider his intelleetual endowments, his 
varied attainments, his elorpienee, his patriotic ardor, or 
his numerous and important services, ranked higher than 
second, even among the Plancocks, Franklins and Jetfer- 
sons in that illustrious assemblage, and that man was Dr. 
John Witherspoon, President of the College of ]S"ew 
Jersey. 

A lineal descendant of John Knox, he comes before us 
in history as a '' many sided"' man. He was a scholar of 
the largest culture, a profound theologian, a faithful, pious 
and laborious pastor, an orator of commanding eloquence, 
a successful teacher, a voluminous and successful author, a 
skilful financier, a statesman, and a great leader among 
men. It is difficult to say in which of these characters he 
shone to most advantage. 

"When the Declaration of Independence was under 
debate" — we quote the words of the Rev. Dr. John M. 
Krebs, of New York — " doubts and forebodings were 
whispered through the hall. The House hesitated, wavered, 
and, for a while, liberty and slavery appeared to hang in 



n 

even scale, ft was then that an aged patriarch arose — a 
veneruhle and stately form, his head white \\ith the frost 
of years. 

"Every eye went to him with the quickness of thought, 
and remained with the fixedness of the polar star. He cast 
on the assembly a look of inexpressible interest and uncon- 
querable determination, while, on his visage, the hue of 
age was lost in the flush of burning patriotism that fired 
his cheek. 

"'There is,' said he, 'a tide in the afi'airs of men — a 
nick of time. We perceive it now before us. To hesitate 
is to consent to our own slavery. That noble instrument 
upon your table, which insures immortality to its author, 
should be subscribed this very morning by every pen in 
this house. He that will not respond to its accents and 
strain every nerve to carry into '^ftect its provisions is un- 
worthy the name of freeman ! 

" ' For my own part, of property I have some, of reputa- 
tion more. Tliat reputation is staked, that property is 
pledged on the issue of this contest ; and, although these 
gray hairs must soon descend into the sepulchre, I would 
infinitely rather that they descend thither by the hand of 
the executioner than desert, at this crisis, the sacred cause 
of my country.' "' 

This eloquent outburst r>f pati-iotic ferx'or, there is every 
reason to believe, bore with telling ettect upon the fate of 
the Declaration, which two days after was passed, settling 
at once the momentous question of a nation's independent'C. 

Nor were his services confined to words. 

The firm and united adherence to Wasliington and his 
cause, of the Scotch and Scotch-Irish population, was due 
in no small degree to their confidence in his piety, abilitv 
and wisdom. 

He was a member of " The Secret Committee," and of 
the " Board of War." Indeed, there was hardly an im- 
portant committee appointed by Congress of which he was 
not a member. 



12 

In the superlatively important iinaucial questions tliat 
harassed and imperilled the infant republic, the ad)nstraent 
of which " saved the country and exalted Morris to the 
rank and grandeur of a Washington," Witherspoon was, 
more than any other man, the trusted counsellor of the 
o-reat financier. 

And now it is a point that merits special mention, that 
Presbyterianism is, in its very nature and spirit, mi organi- 
zing force. As naturally as the seed germinates Presby- 
terianism organizes. It is itself an organism, and shrinks 
with instinctive and strong repugnance from a state of, or 
tendency toward disintegration. A half score of Presby- 
terians in contiguity, whether on our western frontiers, or 
in the heart of Asia, are sure to organize into a compact 
body, by the election of a board of Ruling Elders. A half 
dozen churches, find them where you will, inevitably 
organize into a Presbytery. Three or four Presbyteries 
will form a Synod, and the Synods will combine into a 
General Assembly. Tlie principle of unity lives and acts 
as a vital force in the very bones of Presbyterianism ! 

jSTow, as the Revolutionary War drew to a close, the 
momentous question forced itself upon thinking minds. 
What next? The colonies entered into the struggle as 
separate and independent bodies. Shall they, at the close 
of the war, when victory has crowned their efforts in the 
field, revert to their former state of isolation ? 

In a debate upon this subject, the opinion was maintained 
that a peinnanent union among the colonies was impractica- 
ble. 

' But the organizing spirit of Presbyterianism was too 
strong iu Dr. Witherspoon to allow such an opinion to go 
unchallenged and unrebuked. With all the force of his 
genius, and with all the ardor of his eloquence did he 
combat the fallacy and urge the prompt formation of a 
compact, confederate union. 

" I look upon delay here, as in the case of the repentance 



13 

of a sinner, though it adds to the neeessitv, yet it augments 
the difficulty." 

And he concluded an eloquent appeal for the measure, 
with these words: "For all these reasons, Sir, I humbly 
apprehend that every argument from honour, interest, safety and 
necessity, conspire in jjressing us to a confederacy, and if it be 
seriousl}^ attempted, I hope by the blessing of God upon 
our endeavours, it will be happily accomplished." 

And as the life of the colonial cause had been at stake 
in the war, so every element ot subsequent national pros- 
perit}' and safety was involved in the question of national 
organization. Recalling then the fact that Witherspoon 
was a Presbyterian, backed by the combined Presby- 
terianism of the country, and that he threw the whole 
weight of his and its influence in favor of compacting the 
several commonwealths into one body, we may form some 
estimates of the share which Presbj'terianism had in con- 
structing and launching the majestic ship that ?iow rides in 
grace and miglit over the waves, bearing in its bosom its 
forty millions of voyagers. 

And now, if Grod bade his Israel to take those stones 
from the river's bed and build them into a monument of 
that Jordan passage, will he look with disfjivor upon us 
if we gather some stones from the bed of our national 
Jordan, and taking some of the brass we dig from our hills, 
shape it into the form and features of the devout, devoted, 
patriotic Witherspoon, and, as Christian affection has done 
forCranmer, Ridley and Latimer, at Oxford, and for Buuyan, 
at Bedford, and for Knox, at Glasgow, set up that figure 
upon those stones before the eyes of men, there to stand 
through coming generations a mute but eloquent witness 
of what God did, in the days that tried men's souls, for 
our beloved country, through his agency and that of those 
he represented. 

Such a monument will symbolize, 

1. The inseparable union hetiueen Religion and Freedom. 



14 

Witherspoon was at once an ardent Christian and an 
ardent patriot, and his principles of civil freedom he 
derived from his religion. 

It is as a creature of God, created in tlie iniag-e of God, 
that man possesses those " inalienable rights." And as the 
God of the Bible is their only source so the religion of the 
Bible is their only effective conservator. Banish religion 
from our nation and yon send it straight after France and 
Spain, to anarchy or to despotism I 

Is it unwise, is it not at once a privilege and a duty, in 
this da}' when atheism prates of human rights, while it 
abolishes the God from whom they flow, to embody in 
bronze and set up before the world's eyes the truth — " Re- 
ligion and Liberty, two but inseparable ?" 

2. Then, the success of our revolutionar}- struggle was 
due to the favor of God in answer to prayer. Is it not 
well to set up before men the figure of him who, in addi- 
tion to his other services, was ever the mover in Congress 
for the appointment of those respected days of fasting, 
humiliation and prayer, which wrought so powerfully with 
the people to blend piety with patriotism, and to hallow- 
all that was dear to love of country with all that was 
sacred in religion 'i 

3. The time will be when among the green trees of that 
matchless park marble statues of many secular worthies 
will o-leam in the sunlio-ht and shimmer in the moonlight. 

And is religion nothing in this city where every ninth 
person has a seat at our communion tables, that it should 
have no representative there to challenge attention to its 
existence, claims and services ? 

Worldliness has too large a place in common thought, 
and even heathenism too large a place in our language. 
The first day of our week we name after the sun god, and 
the fourth after the heathen god Woden, and the fifth after 
Thor, and so with all tlie rest. And Mercury the god of 
thieves, and Venus the goddess of licentiousness, and 



16 

Church and State, hand and foot, Scotch Presbyterism 
saved constitutional liberty from overthrow ! 

And the erection of this statue in that Park, and its 
presence there, will give occasion for the setting forth, 
l>efore countless minds, of these instructive and exhil- 
arating truths. 

Fifth. And such a monument will be a ceaseless itera- 
tion of the fact that, to a very large degree, the seed whose 
fruit we, as citizens of this Republic, are now harvesting 
in our principles of civil and religious freedom, in our 
intelligence and means of culture, and in the nation's 
marvellous march to greatness, was sown by Presbyterian 
hands. 

Pinally the unveiling of this statue, in May, 1876, Avith 
prayer and praise and eloquent oration, in the presence of 
the General Assembly of our church, and, as we hope of 
the Synod of the United Presbyterian church, and other 
bodies of Presbyterians, will call the attention of the nation 
and the world to these facts, reminding them that the 
Presbyterian cliurch is, in its nature and form, a Representa- 
tive Republic; and that, ever hated by tyrants, ever a 
champion of truths that create moral nerve and muscle, 
and fit men to dare and do and endure, it has deserved 
and does deserve a deep place in the gratitude, and a high 
place in the admiration of the nation, for its services in 
the cause of God and man. 

For ourself, we are persuaded that the measure we 
propose will, in no feeble way, subserve the great cause of 
our holv relisrion. 



15 

Mars the god of slaugliter, shine down upon us in nighty 
splendor from the bright skies of Jehovah. 

The time is nearing when religion will abolish this 
heathenism, and call the days of the week after the chris- 
tian graces : love, joy, peace, goodness, faith, meekness, 
temperance; and the sun and planets after the apostles, 
and the great star systems after the patriarchs, prophets, 
and martyrs. And, as God is the God of mind and art 
and civilization, why should we not demand for the forms 
of his servants a place among the monumental structures 
that tell of the heroic deeds and days of old? 

Fourth. Such a monument will challenge the attention 
of our sons and daughters, to the character and historic 
glories of our cherished Presbyterian system. 

It is, in great measure, through lack of information on 
these points, that some of them exchange their church for 
another, as readily as they throw away an old shoe string. 

They need to be reminded that so many of the world's 
heroic ones were Presbyterians ! Coliguy and his noble 
army of Huguenots were Presbyterians ! William the 
Silent and his noble army of "ISTetherland warriors were 
Presbyterians ! And what need to speak of Knox, whom 
Carlyle pronounced " the bravest of all Scotchmen;" whom 
Froude calls "the representative of all that was best in 
Scotland," and of whom he adds " no grander figure can 
be found in the history of the Reformation in this island;" or 
of the Melvilles and their compeers; or of those brave 
Covenanters, who spread their Declaration of Independence 
on the broad tombstones in Grey Friars Church-yard, and 
signed it, some of them with a pen dipped in their veins 
opened for the purpose ! 

Our youth need to be taught, and perchance some of 
their elders reminded, that more than once, Presbyterian 
sagacity, piety and heroism, saved the Reformation in 
England, and that, once at least, when that triumvirate of 
tyrants, Charles, Wentvvorth and Laud, had bound England, 



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